Feb. 1 is celebrated as National Freedom Day to commemorate the day on which former President Abraham Lincoln in 1865 approved a joint resolution of Congress that would lead to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which eventually ended slavery. There’s a little backstory to this. President Lincoln signed the joint congressional resolution on Feb. 1, 1865, proposing the 13th Amendment but the number of states needed to ratify the amendment was reached only on Dec. 6, 1865.